few weeks farther on, this is what the Newspapers report of Mecklenburg, in spite of his Prussian Majesty's desire to have some mercy shown the poor infatuated Duke: "The Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel," his Britannic Majesty and Squire in that sad business, "REFUSE to withdraw their forces out of Mecklenburg, or part with the Chest of the Revenues thereof, until an entire satisfaction be given them for the arrears of the Charges they have been at in putting the Sentence of the Aulic Council [Kaiser's REICHSHOFRATH and rusty thunder] into execution against the said Duke." [Salmon's Chronological Historian (London, 1748—a Book never to be quoted without caution), ii. 216;—date (translated into new style), 10th July, 1729.]
Matters grew greatly worse when George paid his first Visit to Hanover in character of King, early in the Summer of 1729. Part of his road lies through Prussian Territory: "Shall he have free post-horses, as his late Majesty was wont?" asks the Prussian Official person. "If he write to request them, yes," answers Friedrich Wilhelm; "if he don't write, no." George does not write; pays for his post-horses;—flourishes along to Hanover, in absolute silence towards his clownish Brother-in-Law. You would say he looks over the head of him, as if there were no such clown in existence;—he has never yet so much as notified his arrival. "What is this? There exists no Prussia, then, for little George?" Friedrich Wilhelm's inarticulate, interjectionary utterances, in clangorous metallic tone, we can fancy them, now and then; and the Tobacco-Parliament is busy! British Minister Dubourgay, steady old military gentleman, who spells imperfectly, but is intent to keep down mischief, writes at last to Hanover, submissively suggesting, "Could not, as was the old wont, some notification of the King's arrival be sent hither, which would console his Prussian Majesty?" To which my Lord Townshend answers, "Has not been the custom, I am informed [WRONG informed, your Lordship]; not necessary in the circumstances." Which is a high course between neighbors and royal gentlemen and kinsfolk. The Prussian Court hereupon likewise shuts its lips; no mention of the Hanoverian Court, not even by her Majesty and to Englishmen, for several weeks past. [Dubourgay.] Some inarticulate metallic growl, in private, at dinner or in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM: the rest is truculent silence. Nor are our poor Hanover Recruits (according to our List of Pressed Hanoverians) in the least sent back; nor the Clamei Meadows settled; "Big Meadow" or "Little one," both of which the Brandenburgers have mown in the mean time.
Hanover Pressed men not coming home—I think, not one of them—the Hanover Officials decide to seize such Prussian Soldiers as happen to be seizable, in Hanover Territory. The highway in that border-country runs now on this side of the march, now on that;—watch well, and you will get Prussian Soldiers from time to time! Which the Hanover people do; and seize several, common men and even officers. Here is once more a high course of proceeding. Here is coal to raise smoke enough, if well blown upon—which, with Seckendorf and Grumkow working the bellows, we may well fancy it was! But listen to what follows, independently of bellows.
On the 28th June, 1729, hay lying now quite dry upon the Meadow of Clamei, lo, the Bailiff of Hanoverian Buhlitz, Unpicturesque Traveller will find the peat-smoky little Village of Buhlitz near by a dusty little Town called Luchow, midway from Hamburg to Magdeburg; altogether peaty, mossy country; in the Salzwedel district, where used to be Wendic populations, and a Marck or Border Fortress of Salzwedel set up against them:—Bailiff of Buhlitz, I say, sallies forth with several carts, with all the population of the Village, with a troop of horse to escort, and probably flags flying and some kind of drums beating;—publicly rakes together the hay, defiant of the Prussian Majesty and all men; loads it on his carts, and rolls home with it; leaving to the Brandenburgers nothing but stubble and the memory of having mown for Hanover to eat. This is the 28th June, 1729; King of Prussia is now at Magdeburg, reviewing his troops; within a hundred miles of these contested quag-countries: who can blame him that he flames up now into clear blaze of royal indignation? The correspondence henceforth becomes altogether lively: but in the Britannic Archives there is nothing of it—Dubourgay having received warning from my Lord Townshend to be altogether ignorant of the matter henceforth, and let the Hanover Officials manage it. His Prussian Majesty returns home in the most tempestuous condition.
We may judge what a time Queen Sophie had of it; what scenes there were with Crown-Prince Friedrich and Wilhelmina, in her Majesty's Apartment and elsewhere! Friedrich Wilhelm is fast mounting to the red-hot pitch. The bullyings, the beatings even, of these poor Children, love-sick one of them, are lamentable to hear of, as all the world has heard:—"Disobedient unnatural whelps, biting the heels of your poor old parent mastiff in his extreme need, what is to be done with you?" Fritz he often enough beats, gives a slap to with his rattan; has hurled a plate at him, on occasion, when bad topics rose at table; nay at Wilhelmina too, she says: but the poor children always ducked, and nothing but a little noise and loss of crockery ensued. Fritz he deliberately detests, as a servant of the Devil, incorrigibly rebelling against the paternal will, and going on those dissolute courses: a silly French cockatoo, suspected of disbelief in Scripture; given to nothing but fifing and play-books; who will bring Prussia aud himself to a bad end. "God grant he do not finish on the gallows!" sighed the sad Father once to Grumkow. The records of these things lie written far and wide, in the archives of many countries as well as in Wilhelmina's Book.
To me there was one undiplomatic reflection continually present: Heavens, could nobody have got a bit of rope, and hanged those two Diplomatic swindlers; clearly of the scoundrel genus, more than common pickpockets are? Thereby had certain young hearts, and honest old ones too, escaped being broken; and many a thing might have gone better than it did. JARNI-BLEU, Herr Feldzeugmeister, though you are an orthodox Protestant, this thousand-fold perpetual habit of distilled lying seems to me a bad one. I do not blame an old military gentleman, with a brow so puckered as yours, for having little of the milk of human kindness so called: but this of breaking, by force of lies merely, and for your own uses, the hearts of poor innocent creatures, nay of grinding them slowly in the mortar, and employing their Father's hand to do it withal; this—Herr General, forgive me, but there are moments when I feel as if the extinction of probably the intensest scoundrel of that epoch might have been a satisfactory event!—Alas, it could not be. Seckendorf is lying abroad for his Kaiser; "the only really able man we have," says Eugene sometimes. Snuffles and lisps; and travels in all, as they count, about 25,000 miles, keeping his Majesty in company. Here are some glimpses into the interior, dull but at first-hand, which are worth clipping and condensing from Dubourgay, with their dates:—
30th JULY, 1729. To the respectable old Brigadier, this day or yesterday, "her Majesty, all in tears, complained of her situation: King is nigh losing his senses on account of the differences with Hanover; goes from bed to bed in the night-time, and from chamber to chamber, 'like one whose brains are turned.' Took a fit, at two in the morning, lately, to be off to Wusterhausen:"—about a year ago Seckendorf and Grumkow had built a Lodge out there, where his Majesty, when he liked, could be snug and private with them: thither his Majesty now rushed, at two in the morning; but seemingly found little assuagement. "Since his return, he gives himself up entirely to drink:—Seckendorf," the snuffling Belial, "is busy, above ground and below; has been heard saying He alone could settle these businesses, Double-Marriage and all, would her Majesty but trust him!"—
"The King will not suffer the Prince-Royal to sit next his Majesty at table, but obliges him to go to the lower end; where things are so ordered," says the sympathetic Dubourgay, "that the poor Prince often rises without getting one bit,"—woe's me! "Insomuch that the Queen was obliged two days ago [28th July, 1729, let us date such an occurrence] to send, by one of the servants who could be trusted, a Box of cold fowls and other eatables for his Royal Highness's subsistence!" [Dubourgay, 30th July, 1729.]
In the first blaze of the outrage at Clamei, Friedrich Wilhelm's ardent mind suggested to him the method of single combat: defiance of George, by cartel, To give the satisfaction of a gentleman. There have been such instances on the part of Sovereigns; though they are rare: Karl Ludwig of the Pfalz, Winter-king's Son, for example, did, as is understood, challenge Turenne for burning the Pfalz (FIRST burning that poor country got); but nothing came of it, owing to Turenne's prudence. Friedrich Wilhelm sees well that it all comes from George's private humor: Why should human blood be shed except George's and
